Classified

“I retweeted an Instagram picture someone posted on their Facebook page that shows how to place blood tubes in a centrifuge. There is also a vine of it on their LinkedIn profile.” Confused yet? I’m a millennial, more commonly known as generation Y, and if there is a social network out there people my age are either on it or bored with it already. The question that keeps coming up is where do the social networks fit in to professional life? Perhaps the bigger question is can you be yourself while maintaining a professional persona? Most large organizations have social media policies that prohibit their employees from speaking badly about them on social media sites. Some policies also allow a company to terminate someone if the person lists them as their employer and does or posts something that the employer feels isn’t up to their standards.

The reality is if you are on these sites and you list your employer you must be careful. If people ask my advice on social media I usually tell them to stay as ghosts, and don’t list your employer. In my personal situation I don’t even have my real last name on my Facebook account plus it is private and even if you knew what my name was you couldn’t search it. Now, I really have nothing to hide seeing as I have over 1000 friends on my Facebook account but I not only want to control what goes out but more importantly who sees it. My feelings are, keep your personal life personal and your professional life exactly that.

Some may find it surprising that a young person isn’t posting every aspect of their life but I just feel that my organization doesn’t need to know what I have for dinner after I leave for the day. It is really each individual’s choice on what they want to follow or add but it just seems to me that it is a little to easy to become emotional about something and next thing you know it’s out there for all to see. It is pretty much a daily occurrence that some celebrity has to apologize for something that is taken out of context and the same goes for everyone else. When you tweet out that you can’t stand your boss, smiley face; you may not be around to explain the sarcastic nature of the post.

As a supervisor, I would never recommend being friends with people you lead unless you understand and realize that everything you post will be fair game in the workplace. I think a lot of people either forget that or simply don’t understand the significance of social media until it’s too late. Just because something happens outside of the organization, if one of your coworkers sees it you can bet that it will find its way back to the workplace. This is the personal aspect of social media and if your organization requires you to have a public account as a leader to be available for comment and questions nothing says you can’t have two accounts. Have a public profile and a personal one that you can set to private. When people ask me at work if I have any social media accounts I just tell them that information is classified.

–Matthew Herasuta, MBA, MLS(ASCP)CM is a medical laboratory scientist who works as a generalist and serves as the Blood Bank and General Supervisor for the regional Euclid Hospital in Cleveland, OH.